Monday, June 27, 2016

celine walked up the straight paved road. the trees on the side began to thin out.

the day was bright, and she could see clearly up ahead.

she saw a checkpoint gate, and a small guard’s booth, with no one in it.

she looked around to make sure there was nobody in sight, and walked around the gate and kept going up the road.

she saw a car parked up ahead. a limousine - surely the one described by the girl stephanie - but it too seemed unoccupied.

the girl’s story was checking out so far. not that celine had doubted it, but you never knew.

she passed the limo, walking as casually as she could. a quick glance inside - it did not look like anybody, alive or dead, was in it.

as the girl had described, there was a small airstrip - and a small plane on it. the bright sun was shining on the plane’s windows and on its insignia, the insignia celine recognized as parthia’s.

the airstrip was so short any plane on it would have to be capable of almost straight vertical takeoff.

she shielded her eyes to try to see if there was anybody or anything inside the plane and suddenly it’s engine roared to life.

celine stepped back toward the limo.

the plane was turning on the strip, facing away from her. the engine revved up for another ten or fifteen seconds and the plane shot into the sky at almost a 180 degree angle.

so that was that. celine was sure that there was nothing left behind worth looking for or finding, but she checked so that she could say she did.

there was a wooden shack. empty. not a scrap of paper, or a phone or radio, or anything else

there were a couple of cigar butts on the ground outside the shack. she wished she had a plastic bag to put them in, but she didn’t so she put them on a shelf in the shack, in case anybody wanted to check them for dna or whatever.

she approached the limo. might it be wired in some way? it seemed unlikely. she would just as soon have left it alone but she had to make sure the girl’s sister was not in it.

she tried the handle on the driver’s side. it was unlocked.

there was nothing in or under the seats. nothing in the glove compartment. nothing at all except a faint whiff of cigars. and no keys in the ignition.

she popped the trunk. she walked around and found it as empty as she expected.

as she closed the trunk she heard a car behind her. her own blue car, with priscilla at the wheel.

priscilla pulled up, and got out. “i heard the plane, “ she told celine. “i had to make sure you were not on it.”

“no, i timed it perfectly. a few minutes earlier, and i might at least have had to tell someone a story.”

“you always time things perfectly,” priscilla laughed.

“yeah, right. let’s get out of here. if davis wants to check this place out he can send somebody.”

stephanie had gotten out of the car. “what about laurene? did they take her?”

“they must have, honey,” celine told her. “she’s not here. she’s not in the car, she’s not in that shack over there. look around, where else would she be?” she did not add, they did not have time to bury her anywhere.

“they brought her here to take her somewhere, and they did,” priscilla added. “you were the lucky one - the cool one - getting away.”

“i guess,” stephanie agreed.

“let’s get out of here,” celine repeated. she got behind the wheel of the blue car.

*

none of them spoke until they were off the road to the airstrip and back on the highway.

“do you want us to take you home?” celine finally asked stephanie.

“do i want you to take me home?” stephanie exclaimed. “why, where else would you take me?”

“oh, we will take you home if you want to,” priscilla quickly reassured her. “no problem there.”

“are you in a hurry to get home?” celine asked.

stephanie didn’t know what to say. she didn’t really want to go back and explain to joanie lee what had happened.

joanie lee would have a million questions stephanie could not answer, and when she couldn’t answer then joanie lee would get mad and blame her for - blame her for something , anything, because that was the way joanie lee was.

maybe joanie lee wasn’t even there. maybe the servants were not there, maybe nobody was there, and she would never see any of them, including her father, “the prince”, “ again.

as crazy as the whole thing sounded as she was telling it, neither of the two women expressed any surprise or amazement at it. the older one, still seated in the car, seemed attentive, but the younger one continually glanced at her phone and at the sky.

“so she is lampeduse’s daughter,” the older one said, when stephanie finished.

“that is all very well,” the younger one replied, “but where is lampeduse? and does it matter now?”

“probably not. if everything she said is true.”

“what! “ exclaimed stephanie. “you don’t believe me!”

“of course we believe what you told us, my dear,” the older woman told her. “but you may have misunderstood what the gentlemen were saying.”

the younger woman started toward the dirt road. “you say there were two planes up there?” she asked stephanie.

“yes.”

“we only saw one go.”

stephanie shrugged. “i saw two.”

“and how many people - altogether?”

“i’m not sure, “ stephanie answered uncertainly. but the young woman held her hand up before she could go on.

a light had flashed on the phone in the young woman’s hand. she quickly pressed it close to her ear.

“yes - yes - yes - right,” she answered at intervals. “yes - of course we understand - later.” she took the phone away from her ear and slipped it into a pocket.

“and - ?” the older woman asked.

“it’s on. just a couple of minutes ago.”

“ah.” the two women just looked at each other.

“should we go up and check out this mysterious landing strip? “ the older woman asked.

“not much point, do you think?”

“what about my sister?” stephanie asked. “she should be back by now - if they didn’t take her.”

“well, there you go,” the younger woman said. “they must have taken her with them.”

“maybe they shot her,” stephanie said. “maybe she’s lying up there bleeding to death right now.”

“you know, celine,” said the older woman, “maybe we should go up and see what is there. if we don’t and it turns out - “

“you are probably right.” the younger woman turned to stephanie. “do you want to stay here and wait, or come with us?”

“um - go with you.”

“get in the back seat, then.”

stephanie got in the back of the blue car and celine got back behind the wheel and maneuvered the car onto the dirt road.

“what was that phone call about?” stephanie asked, when they were fairly on to the dirt road.

“nothing much,” celine replied, with a little laugh. “just that war has been declared.”

stephanie did not know what to say. she had been hearing talk about “the war” for so long - almost her whole life - she hardly paid attention to it. “by who? against who?” as soon as she said it, she expected the older looking woman to say - “against whom” - but she did not.

the younger woman, celine, said “everybody against everybody,” and both women laughed.

“you seem to think it’s all quite jolly,” stephanie said.

“not really,” the older woman told her, “it’s just that - we’ve been waiting so long, it does seem a bit of a relief.”

they were now off the dirt road. celine drove a little further and then pulled over.

there was a thick clump of trees on the opposite of the road and she turned the car around so that it was in the shade of the trees and facing back down the road toward the highway.

celine opened the glove compartment and took something out of it that stephanie could not see - a gun? she got out of the car without a word and started up the paved road toward the airstrip.

the older woman moved over behind the wheel.

“was that a gun she took?” stephanie asked.

“yes - but it was just a little one.”

“ha ha. you know, i didn’t mean to get anybody killed.”

“don’t worry about her. she can talk her way out of anything. and into anything.”

“what is your name, by the way?’ stephanie asked.

“my name? my name is priscilla - miss prue to you.”

“you mean you want me to call you ‘miss prue’?”

“no, that was just my little joke. you can call me priscilla.”

“well, priscilla, what is all this about? if you don’t mind my asking.”

“if we knew, we would not be here. we are trying to find out what it is all about.”

“are you spies?”

priscilla laughed. “what a quaint word. you must read old books, my dear.”

“sometimes.”

they both fell silent.

after a while, priscilla asked, “when we are through here - and i have every confidence we will be through here, do you want us to take you home - to your castle or whatever?”

“why, of course, where else would you take me?”

“oh, we will take you home if you wish, by all means. but when celine returns, maybe we can discuss other options.”

stephanie did not reply to this, and priscilla went on, “you showed quite some spunk, my dear, just walking off like you did. and a cool head, too. yes, a cool head.”

or maybe somebody running after me on foot - she hadn’t thought of that!

maybe somebody would shoot at her - she had not thought of that either.

still running, she looked back over her shoulder.

the blacktop road was long and straight and there was nobody on it.

she took a deep breath, then picked up speed again.

the road was - naturally - a lot longer than it had seemed driving down it.

the road was lined with trees, but they were not so thick that they would hide much of anything - like a building - behind them.

she kept running - she ran regularly, and was in good shape.

she thought she could see the dirt road up ahead.

suddenly the air was filled with a loud roaring.

the planes! or one off them.

stephanie looked up and back at the sky.

sure enough, there was one of the planes rising up almost at a 180 degree angle.

quickly it was gone, leaving just the blue sky overhead.

was laurene on it? or had the ambassador and gustav followed through on “not much point on taking them now” and let laurene go?

stephanie hesitated. she decided there was no point is going back to the clearing.

if they had let laurene go, she might be walking back down the road now.

stephanie decided to go back down to the highway and wait to see if laurene showed up.

she started walking. she could now clearly see the beginning of the dirt road that led back down to the highway.

it was very quiet. somehow the silence made her feel that laurene was not coming down the road, and nobody else was either.

she reached the dirt road. the trees were thicker, and she heard a few birds snd some small animals in the bush on the side of the road.

then she heard the highway. it sounded busy.

she reached the highway. she found a large flat rock about ten yards from the dirt road, and sat down on it to wait for laurene. the road, she now realized, would be barely noticeable from the highway.

there was a steady stream of cars and trucks on the opposite side of the road, heading north, toward the airport.

an airport from which no planes seemed to be either taking off or leaving. the little plane that had left the clearing - with or without laurene on it - had broken a total stillness.

there were no vehicles going south - on the side of the highway stephanie was sitting on.

stephanie waited. she plucked a few blades of grass. she felt almost peaceful.

up until now she had regarded the coming war and collapse of civilization as unworthy of her attention and a bore.

now what?

laurene did not appear. stephanie started to feel sure she was not going to show up. should she try to get to the other side of the highway, where all the cars were? high dividers separated the two sides, and the cars going by filled the opposite lanes and were moving fairly swiftly.

before she could decide what to do, a car approached her. a nondescript blue car, of some indeterminate model - stephanie was not really up on the different makes of cars - and it passed by before before she could react in time to stand up and wave at it.

but then the car stopped. it pulled over halfway on to the dirt, and then backed up swiftly toward stephanie.

stephanie moved down toward it. as she did it crossed her mind that the occupants might be connected to the ambassador and gustav. but if they were, would they have overshot the dirt road?

there seemed to be two people in the blue car. a middle-aged woman looked out inquisitively at stephanie as she approached.

stephanie had never seen anyone like the woman in real life. she was tall, thin, with a long face and with her hair in a bun on top of her head. and dressed in brown and gray. she looked like a schoolteacher or governess in an old movie - like jane eyre or little women or something like that.

stephanie could make out a younger woman in the driver’s seat.

“would you like a ride?” the bun-haired woman ask.

“um - i am not sure,” stephanie replied.

“you are not sure?” the woman asked, with a smile that was friendly enough.

“i’m waiting for my sister - maybe,” stephanie said.

“maybe?” the woman glanced over at the driver.

“i - it’s a long story,” stephanie told her, a little flustered.

the driver’s side door opened. the driver got out and came around toward stephanie.

she was younger than stephanie had first thought - not much older than stephanie herself, probably about the same age as laurene. she had a small phone in her hand, which she glanced at as she approached stephanie.